Structuring articulation: asylum applications and elite political communication on social media during the European refugee crisis

How do political parties adapt their discourse when confronted with rapidly changing structural conditions? This study examines the relationship between asylum applications and elite political communication during the European refugee crisis (2014–2019). Synthesising structuralist and constructivist approaches from political sociology, we argue that parties’ communications about immigration were closely related to shifts in asylum applications. Using Facebook posts from 63 political parties across ten European countries, we employ regression models and structural topic modelling to analyse the volume and content of their immigration-related discourse. We find that parties devoted more attention to immigration when the number of asylum applications increased. This pattern was more complex in Germany, where attention decreased when asylum applications peaked at record levels. Content analysis reveals asymmetric ideological responses to increased asylum applications: left-wing parties exhibited higher levels of humanitarian messaging, emphasising solidarity, housing, and integration, whereas right-wing parties focused on violence associated with refugees. These patterns demonstrate how structural shocks interact with existing ideological commitments to produce distinct communication patterns, creating opportunities and constraints for political articulation.